


My soulmate? More like my soulbreak

by NellB0_0



Series: If you can't get rid of the skeletons in your closet, teach them to dance [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, or are they?, sans and papyrus are not related
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-01-04 22:33:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18353060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellB0_0/pseuds/NellB0_0
Summary: Ever since I saw the other monster, at the Outside, I was in love. As soon as those beautiful eye-sockets looked at me and his gorgeous smile was directed my way, I knew I was a goner. Head over heels. Fell. Lovesick. Whatever.The point is, this monster, this Papyrus? He was nice and kind and brave. And I loved him. I wanted to be by his side, forever. I made a promise to get out, to live with him and be happy until our final day.This was not supposed to be literal.And yet, years later, I regret not being specific about my wish, because this final day is repeating over and over and our beautiful life together? A lie.But I love him.So I stay.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I know I have another story already started? But this hit me and I need to get it out. 
> 
> In this world, the war between humans and monsters was not that long ago. At least not for the monsters, who age differently.

He was little the first time he saw him. The doctors had already left the lab for the day, so there was nothing interesting going on. When they left, they just cut the power out. 

This meant no electricity, not going to another room, there was nothing as there were locks for everything, even for food and water. Just the tinted glass from where they observed them like rats in a labyrinth was different from that nondescript nothingness of white and grey. 

We were not that different from rats, Sans guessed. At least, not to them.

Each kid was created with a purpose, a motive and a role already planned out for each one. _We were synthetically created. We weren't real._ There was a time when Sans thought this was the irrefutable truth. There was a time when that belief changed. Now, he wonders, was he ever real?

_ What's the thing supposed to make you real in this world? Your personality? Ours was programmed. Our souls? Artificially manipulated every day for certain traits to surface. Our thoughts? It's not like brainwashing is new in this time and era of war between humans and monsters. _

_We were a request, a replacement for future positions of those that were being killed._ Sans wasn’t sure what to think about that then, sure as fuck doesn’t know what to think of it now.

He was playing with his toes, he remembers that much. It’s not like there was anything else and he wasn’t going to tear his clothes like other kids did. 

What was he going to do? Run around butt-naked? Even if he doesn’t have a butt, he's glad he didn’t. Sans was a kid then, so the possibility was there, but thinking about the cold and the punishment that would absolutely come with it was not worth it.

**Nothing was worth a punishment in that hell.**

So, his toes. They were dirty, the little bones gray and ashy. Right, the ash, how could he ever forget the ash. But, even when the situation was dire, Sans looked at that cursed mirror and wondered, _if we are so perfect, why do I just have one eye?_

One cyan and yellow eye in his left eye-socket. 

Was that a brand or something? All the scientists had both of theirs, so what, they thought they were superior or something? As if life wasn’t hard enough for them as it was. 

_How naive, innocent and weird I had been as a kid._

Whenever he got bored with my toes, he used to go to that mirror and try to glimpse the other side, what he and the other monsters in there called The Outside. There had to be a place were the scientists went after messing with them all, right? 

Sans went as near as possible without touching the glass, but all he could see was a dark room filled with desks. There was nothing in them, usually. Except for one of them that had a flower in a vase. So beautiful, so orange and vibrant and extremely cheery. It was hypnotizing. 

But this time, instead of a flower, there was another pair of eye-sockets.

He was so still that even he wondered how is it possible that he's got no muscles, but even without lungs his breath was taken away.

It was a kid with large eye-sockets, fine and strong-looking bones, wearing the most colorful outfit he had ever seen. Since then, that one orange flower paled in comparison.

Who had time to be charmed by flowers anyway, with such a gorgeous sight in front of him. 

The kid smiled, such brightness and happiness and overall niceness that made my knees tremble. The thing is, Sans wasn’t nervous. One of the scientists tried to talk to them about love, once.

He remembers being scared, thinking they were going to be tested again on LOVE. It was nice, thinking about meeting someone who would make your soul go racing and empty your head because all words and thoughts flied away to the stars.

Then Lanny asked what stars were. What was a star? Could you watch it? Could you touch it? Could you eat it?

… Were the scientists stars? 

If so, it would explain why our conditions and upbringing was so different. But that one, the blue and yellow ( ~~ blue and yellow like my eye, my magic, it was mine, stop trying to take my colors away from me ~~ ) bird got scared and ran away. They said that Lanny was in confinement from now on until he was deemed sane again. He wasn't seen again, at least not before The Accident happened.

The thing is, he wasn’t nervous, his soul was beating evenly and strong and his head was whirling with thoughts and tangents but they all made sense in the chaos. It wasn’t the description the scientists told them, and yet… _And yet, even back then, I knew._

It was love.

_ I didn’t know why, I didn’t understand what was going on, but I longed to touch the other kid. Even if my instincts were messing with me, my resolution was strong. I would not touch the glass, I would not activate the alarm.  _

And those eye-sockets were so warm, the right one… b l u e   a n d   y e l l o w ?

“ Nyeh ?” and hit small him in the skull if that wasn’t the cutest sound he had ever heard, because goddamn if he didn’t want to hug the other right in that fucking moment. Take his hand, cover his eyes and ears so he wouldn’t see or hear anything of what was going on in that place, the screams and pain and hopelessness. 

Sans had one eye, but he wasn’t stupid. The kid of The Outside was innocent in a way that even their youngest, Connie, wasn’t.

It was for the best, surely.

“ My name is Wing Dings Papyrus, but everyone calls me Papyrus or Pap. What’s yours? ”

And his voice was almost like a whisper, like a secret not to be shared with anyone else in this world but him. Such a big difference with his present tone.

And in kind, Sans answered with the lowest voice he could muster up for him, but enough to be heard.

“ My name is Sans. ”

He got dizzy and, suddenly, he could see from both of his eyes. 

Two, white and round pin-pricks of light in his eye-sockets instead of that one cyan and yellow left one.

It felt like hope.

It felt like love.

_ It felt like I had been freed even with that glass forever in our way. _


	2. You chose to have loved and lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sans keeps remembering stuff and the author just discovered the wonders of a Thesaurus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, I don't know if someone even reads this, but I like it a lot so... If by any chance you're reading this thing, feel free to tell me what you think!

The next time he saw Papyrus, it wasn’t in a good situation. Not that Sans knew his name at the time, anyway. It had been so long ago that he had almost forgotten, but refused to let it go as much as it pained him. It was still a memory of his beloved brother and he would rather die again at the hands of the human than to forget any memory, no matter how painful or cruel, especially the ones that included Papyrus. Wether those were his death, the red scarf alone in the wind covered in powdery dust, the arguments, their routines or when they first met.

 

In this particular memory he remembered pain, his feet scrapping the gray concrete that covered every surface in sight apart from the cells at both sides. His feet hurt, but a complaint would be met with conditioning and endurance tests and he wasn’t ready, Sans would do a lot of things just so he could avoid that. 

 

The tight grip the scientist had in his right arm was just short of painful and the speed with which he walked made it difficult to match the rhythm. His short legs straining so he wouldn’t fall and crack his skull or something equally painful. He felt behind but the tight hold of his bones didn’t allow that for long, making him stumble and hurry as best as he could.

 

But even in that situation, he was happy, giddy even. He could see more, better and brighter. It was a lot to take on, but made him incredibly pleased with himself, even when the feeling was surrounded by pain, both his and others.

 

Take a right, then keep going straight and another right, then a left and down a staircase. The electronic panels in the walls, just to the right of every cell, lighting up as they passed too fast to read them.

 

He was being led further down in the laboratory, still marveling at his own eye lights in every possible surface that would let him even a glimpse of those two shining white orbs. Almost without noticing the despairing and hopeless monsters that surrounded him, looking at him with sorrow and pity. Sans stumbled, almost falling down the stairs until the monster holding him seemed to force himself to calm down. The scientist who was in charge of him was panicking, that at least was obvious to Sans.

 

Then again, Sans had been conditioned in this way, to think following certain patterns, to pick apart each an every emotion in someone’s face until he knew them from the inside out even better than they knew themselves. To spook them, to judge them, to forgive or completely obliterate them. It didn’t matter in the end, but thanks to this he was certain.

 

The scientist, a monster with the characteristics of a cat but with blue fur and his face completely covered in darkness no matter the light focused on it, was panicking about Sans himself.

 

He didn’t really know what was wrong, he felt fine and nothing hurt, so it didn’t make sense. Nothing had changed since last time they had checked him. But then he realized. Oh. Something had changed, something he had been desperate to keep looking at. 

 

His eye lights.

 

Was he defective? Were they trying to fix him or would he end up confined? Maybe something even worse, discarded? A scrapped project?

 

Surely it would be counterproductive for them, having spent so much money in trying to make a monster just to erase him. Because, even if they were constructs, Sans wasn’t stupid. There was a lot of material needed to build those and progress on every subject needed to be slow. Always careful, alway attentive so nothing would go wrong. It calmed him somewhat, but not fully. It wouldn’t be the first time one of them walked through this same halls. Desperate, hurting, mad, crazy or sad. Their emotions didn’t matter in the end so what was the point?

 

None. It was pointless as everything down there usually was. The scientists were the ones in control and the subjects such as him could only hope to survive long enough to be released into the world with the rest of the monsters. But he was weak, and the scientist was panicking so it didn’t make a lot of sense. Because, if the scientist wasn’t in control and he hundred percent wasn’t, then what? Sans felt his face going completely blank, all the excitement from his new and amplified eyesight entirely gone. 

 

The cat stopped in front of a steel wall, sneaking uneasy glances at Sans for no reason whatsoever - before releasing him of his hold -, or so he thought. But there was always something, the shuffling of his feet, the slight tremble of his body or the lowering ears in his head. Anxiety, fear and apprehension. 

 

The steel door, a surface completely polished and shiny stole his attention. And Sans looked, really looked, at himself. The cracks, the sickly color of his bones that were way too grey, his rattled clothing - just a gray hospital gown covered in questionable stains - and his uneasy face with those two bright white eye lights. 

 

The door opened, the scientist muttering something under his breath that Sans couldn’t neither catch nor question before being ushered in a room with a lot of people wearing white coats, monsters on all sizes and colors. 

 

There was one who stood out, however. A skeleton like himself, covered in scars - specially those two large cracks in his skull, keeping his right eye socket shut - and holes in his hands, holding a little skeleton covered in reds and oranges.

 

Suddenly, he felt sick. What wouldn’t he had given then to never had met those shiny eyes that looked back at him with curiosity, just as white as his own now, nothing like their blue and yellow from before. Theirs, Sans noted distantly, not his. Because those colors were not his only anymore. The other kid shared them, for better or for worse.

 

But even if it hurt, even if he wished he hadn’t met him at all, his soul revealed the truth. That no matter what, the other skeleton was important, that he loved him, even if it caused him pain. 

 

Sans kept lying to himself, glaring at them all with all the hatred and revulsion he could muster. 

 

Balling his hands in tight fists, he hoped it was enough. Even when the little skeleton looked at him confused and pained. Even when that weird and tall skeleton kept looking at him with desperation and heartbreak. Sans felt like he knew him, somehow. He just tightened his fists, bone grinding in bone and threatening to snap at any given moment.

 

His glare intensified, the scarred skeleton gulped.

 

_**Good.** _

* * *

 

 

The snow was kind of uncomfortable once it got in his stuff, making his bones feel colder and his soul all the more detached from any situation he would encounter that day, which was… kind of good, actually. He wouldn’t have to bother with processing his own emotions and the correct answer too much, it would be automatic.

 

Like everything about him should be.

 

Sometimes, he wondered. What if those scientist had been right when they told them they were things instead of monsters? Worse yet, what if he had believed them until the very end? Oh, how would have Gaster rubbed that off in his face in whatever kind of afterlife they would all go after their souls shattered. Hopefully, Papyrus had appeared so very long ago, shattering his worldview once he got what had happened that… day? Night?

 

… Did it really matter if they were underground, underneath a mountain, with no way to tell if it was day or night? 

 

Welp.

 

Maybe he wasn’t automatic like he should be - was intended to be, anyways - but he found himself relying on that conditioning more as time passed. It was similar to a script, somehow, but that didn’t really bother him. Nowadays, hardly anything did.

 

He glanced side to side several times, taking in the familiar scene in front of him. Rows and rows of pine trees, fresh and white snow covering everything in its embrace and the giant doors of the Ruins, looming ahead of him like a bad omen. 

 

That wouldn’t deter him of talking to the old lady, though, even if the sight made him uneasy. Would he get to talk to her again or would the kid be out by the time he got there?

 

It felt like forever since he had talker to that kind woman. He really missed the best audience he had ever had.

 

“SANS, ARE YOU AT YOUR POST ALREADY?”

 

But Papyrus sure made everything feel both easier and more difficult. Sans would be the last to admit it, but he felt… conflicted about his brother. But seeing how brightly the tall skeleton smiled eased his mind and soul in ways no other being, human or monster, could ever hope to achieve.

 

“VERY WELL, THEN” Papyrus said, smiling happily for no reason whatsoever. “I’LL COME LATER TO CHECK ON YOU, SANS, SO DON’T DOZE OFF, LAZYBONES! THIS IS THE DAY, I CAN FEEL IT! A HUMAN IS GOING TO COME THROUGH TODAY, AND I’LL FINALLY GET TO BE…” His bones rattled, showing inner excitement and anticipation that made Sans’ soul twist with… something. “POPULAR!!!”

 

And with an enthusiastic “NYEH HEH HEH!” Papyrus made his exit, with a dramatic pose he must have learned in the latest show of Mettaton. The one the both of them saw last night, but felt like forever ago. A long time should have passed, indeed, but…

 

The ominous creak of the Ruin’s door opening cut through his musings like he was just dumped in the river in Snowdin. Looks like he wouldn’t get the chance to talk to Toriel this run, the kid got out early. 

 

He put the whoopee cushion in his hand so it wouldn’t fall off, grinning just a tad more genuinely before it turned bitter at its familiar weight. 

 

Welp, here they go again.

 

* * *

"H u m a n."

"D o n' t   y o u   k n o w   h o w   t o   g r e e t   a   n e w   p a l ?"

"Turn around and shake my hand."

And again.

* * *

 

" hehehe... the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. it's ALWAYS funny."

_And again._

* * *

 

"..."

"that's uh. your cue to laugh. or, uh, to emote at all...?" Wink.

_AND AGAIN._

* * *

 

"..."

"OK, that's fine. everyone's got their own sense of humor."

**_AND AGAIN._ **

* * *

 

Papyrus stood tall and strong in the middle of the road. His broad shoulders, if they could even be called that, only made him seem even taller, distinguished, like he was in another place far, far away. Or, at least, that’s how it felt to him.

 

His soul felt warmth at Papyrus’ usual antics, the easy relationship they had with each other, the verbal quips, just… about everything with Papyrus felt right, in a way nothing else in his life did. He knew it couldn’t last forever, but at the same time, Sans wished that these moments would never end. It felt peaceful, he felt complete. 

 

Yes, because, in the end, Papyrus was all he needed, all he had ever needed. He so loved his brother. Shame he couldn’t risk it, never would dare. But just sometimes, he could imagine how it would be if everything he knew, everything he felt, could just be out in the open, accepted and welcomed despite everything. 

 

Then, Sans remembers certain runs, among the first ones. How everything went to hell in less than a day. He kept his silence, his secrets.

 

Like he would for the rest of his life, probably.

 

He ended his usual routine of puns while sneaking uneasy glances to the conveniently shaped lamp, or rather the human he knew should be hiding there but was actually to his side. His eyes dimmed just a bit more but, hey, what else could he do?

 

There was no hope, so Sans just let go of everything. Keep going, something whispered in his skull, so he did.

_Just a bit more._


End file.
